Labour leader Pat Rabbitte tonight claimed support was seeping away from the Government and that his party was the natural home for many disaffected Fianna Fail voters.
In a speech to the parliamentary party and the national executive on the eve of Labour's annual conference, Mr Rabbitte said almost a quarter of Fianna Fáil's 2002 support had now deserted the party.
He said these voters were disappointed with the Government's performance in reforming the health service and combating crime and that his party's policy programme was closest to meeting their aspirations.
"In other European member states these people would be natural Labour voters," he claimed.
Mr Rabbitte's attempt to woo Fianna Fail voters is as a response to recent overtures by the Taoiseach to Labour Party members who may be unhappy with the party's pre-elaction pact with Fine Gael.
He said the parties in government had no political purpose left except to retain power.
"They are not even committed to keeping each other's party in power. If the only way they can stay in government is to start to shop around for different partners, they are shamelessly prepared to do that," he said.
Mr Rabbitte said on the government's own declaration and after nine years in office "we now have a national emergency in our hospitals service".
"The declaration of a national emergency after nine years is a shocking indictment of three successive ministers."
He claimed Fianna Fail backbenchers were convinced that their electoral difficulties are being exacerbated due to the recurring antics of Minister for Justice Michael McDowell.
The Labour leader also accused the British and Irish Governments of appeasing extremism in Northern Ireland.
Mr Rabbitte said: "Within days of the long overdue decommissioning, we had the Colombia Three episode followed by proposals from the Taoiseach that seemed designed to give Dail speaking rights to Mr Adams.
"Then last Autumn we had (Northern Ireland Secretary of State) Peter Hain's proposal for an amnesty for all those guilty of up to 1,500 unsolved murders during the Troubles and the Taoiseach's acknowledgement that a similar system would apply here," he said.
"We and many others in the Dáil and at Westminster opposed the on the run amnesty Bill. Sinn Féin who had demanded it was the last opponent and then the two governments were forced to abandon it."
Mr Rabbitte said the objective of this weekend's conference was to report to the Party, and to the wider public, on the progress that has been made in the past year towards replacing the Fianna Fáil/PD coalition with an alternative with Labour at its core.